Green Building
What is Green Building?
Why is Green Building Important?
Integrated Green building
SIPs are Green Single Page Mode
Green Building Links
With the planet’s resources depleting and the cost of energy rising, being “green” has gained an increased importance in the way we live. The environmental benefits of a green lifestyle can be incorporated into the design of our homes through the use of structural insulated panels (SIPs).
Green building is the growing movement to build homes and commercial buildings in such a way as to decrease their impact on the environment both during the construction process and throughout the lifetime of the building. The goal of green building is to build structures that are environmentally sustainable, capable of sustaining the earth’s natural resources.
Green buildings reduce environmental impact through the following practices:
- Energy efficiency and renewable energy
- Use of environmentally preferable building materials
- Waste reduction during the construction process
- Healthy indoor environments
- Water conservation
- Environmentally conscious site planning
By incorporating these elements into a building, architects, builders, and homeowners can reduce the building’s impact on the environment and lead the way to a sustainable future.
The construction, maintenance and demolition of buildings consumes a tremendous amount of energy and resources.
In the United States, buildings account for:
- 65% of electricity consumption
- 30% of raw materials use
- 30% of greenhouse gas emissions
Building green is important to the protection of ecosystems, to maintain safe air and water quality, and to conserve renewable and nonrenewable natural resources. Energy efficiency and resource conservation play a key role in foreign policy and national security. Less energy spent in the construction and operation of America’s buildings means less dependence on imported petroleum products.
In addition to these environmental benefits, purchasing a green building has many economic advantages. Energy and water efficient buildings have lower operating costs. Green buildings typically have a higher appraisal value and owners may qualify for Energy Efficient Mortgages.
Green building follows a building systems approach. This theory acknowledges that a building operates as a complex web of systems, including the building envelope, heating equipment, cooling equipment, photovoltaic cells, insulation, air and vapor barriers, and roofing, among others. The building systems approach focuses on the successful integration of these systems to work together for the highest possible performance in a building.
Inadequately integrated systems, such as high end photovoltaic cells coupled with low efficiency windows, will not be successful at saving energy because the energy gained through the solar cells is lost through the windows. Another example of a non-integrated building is a high efficiency, air tight building envelope, and a ventilation system not specified to properly remove moisture from the building.
Building green is more than specifying green products or using more insulation. It involves a carefully planned incorporation of all building systems.
Structural insulated panels are a high performance panelized building system. SIPs create an extremely well insulated and air tight building envelope. An efficient building envelope is a critical component in an effectively integrated green building.
The high R-Value and low levels of air infiltration capable with SIPs enables the performance of other building systems, such as energy efficient HVAC equipment and photovoltaic cells, to be maximized. These components will not be saving as much energy as they could if there are thermal bypasses in the building envelope.
The OSB used in SIP skins is made from small, plantation grown trees that can be sustainably harvested. Because engineered wood products use wood more efficient than sawn lumber, it requires less forest acreage to build a SIP home than a conventional wood framed house.
Expanded polystyrene (EPS), polyurethane, and polyisocyanurate foam cores used in SIPs are made of mostly air and very little petroleum. The average SIP home saves nineteen times the energy it took to make the EPS insulation in the first year of installation.
SIPs have a high R-Value foam core without any thermal bridging studs or areas of potential compression or voids in the insulation. SIP homes also have extremely low levels of air infiltration because there are fewer gaps to seal. When combined with other high efficiency systems, SIP homes commonly demonstrate 50%-70% savings over the Model Energy Code (MEC).
SIPs have been a key component in the creation of zero energy buildings, which produce more energy than they consume.
To read more on the energy saving benefits of SIPs, click here.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the average U.S. home releases 22,000 lbs of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere each year. That is twice the amount of the average vehicle.
By reducing the amount of energy used for heating and cooling, SIPs can significantly cut the emissions produced by our homes and commercial buildings.
In recent years, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the air inside the places we live and work can be more polluted than the air outdoors. This poses a serious health risk to occupants. Poor indoor air quality can lead to sore eyes, throat, and nose, headaches, increased susceptibility to viruses, and asthma-like symptoms.
The degree of building tightness capable with SIPs enables better control over indoor environmental quality. SIP homes typically require mechanical ventilation. Mechanical ventilation allows all incoming air to be filtered for allergens. Air conditioning units can more effectively dehumidify indoor environments in a building with low levels of air infiltration. Both mold and dust mites cannot survive in low humidity environments.
The solid core insulation of SIPs is free of the voids, compressions, or thermal bypasses often associated with mold growth in wood frame, fiberglass insulated construction. Because SIP structures can be erected and dried in quicker than wood frame construction, there is less time for building materials are exposed to the elements and therefore less moisture that must be removed from the completed building. Structural insulated panels are inert and stable, and do not off gas chemicals.
SIPs are primarily fabricated offsite, so there is extremely little jobsite waste disposal. Many manufacturers cut SIPs using optimization software that minimizes the amount of waste in the production process. Excess EPS waste created during the manufacturing process is recycled to make other EPS products. Jobsite waste can often be returned to the panel manufacturer for EPS recycling. Framing scrap accounts for a large portion of construction waste. SIPs offer a simple solution to construction waste reduction that is important to reducing the overall environmental impact of a building.
The Green Building Initiative
United States Green Building Council
EPA Green Building Site
Sunstainable Building Industry Council
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